Lessons

Lesson Info

Hot Seat: Platform, Method, Tool

And now we're gonna bring up someone for a hot seat, cause we're gonna go through these methods and figure out what you're most excited about and what tools can really help you. So I want to bring a who's not using good sweet or who's not using some kind of a social media management tool? Yeah, okay. Went up enough? Sure. Okay. So, Jen, tell us about what you dio and what social media I can help you with. So I have a baby business right now that I call the soul. And okay, I just started it in May, and it is handmade event decor and design. Okay. S O U l s o U l Yes. Okay. And it's handmade event A corn does great. Okay. What are your social media goals? I need to build a following organically. So to make that more specific, um, no, I would love to have, like, 500 Instagram followers and the next two months, Um, I also used Facebook. Probably don't totally need to, but I don't see myself not using it. Okay. Um, so 500 there is What would you use Facebook for your business? Yes. Okay. an...

d the next many months. Two months of two months by November. Okay, Right. How did these girls feel? They feel scary, or they feel like a lot of work. Um, although what you said earlier resonated with the you know, um, you know, just 100 in a month would be three per day. And I noticed every time that I do post a picture on instagram I do that has, you know, good hashtags and everything that I do end up having, like, three people following me. Cool. So with that in mind, it has doable. Okay. Still a lot of work because I don't post every day. Awesome. So tell me about as I walked through the automate streamlining badge what came up for you as things you could do to make your life easier? Um, you know, sitting down on a Monday, say with, like, two hours or maybe even less and just ah, plenty. Now, all of those I I am a huge, um, unlike you, I do buy schedule books and they do change my life. I schedule everything my whole life. Right. Okay. Um, right now, the way I schedule it is I have, like, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and I'll be like, Oh, I'm gonna do this. Instagram, you know, post on Tuesday. Um, I see it right there, and I do it. But this would be I could just do it all on one day and not think about it. You do it for the whole week. Yeah, right. So So one week's worth of content in two hours. Yeah. Uh, okay. And I bet you your work is probably really visual. That's probably why Instagram is a great platform for you. And I bet you have a lot of ups out of, um, photographs you can use from events. Right? So this is something where the content is right, and we're going to get a little bit more into the specifics of this when we get into the actual, like, planning out of when you want to do what? But that you could probably go through in one of those two hour sessions and just pull 30 or 50 or 100 different photographs that you could use. Although sometimes I am just going and grabbing the photo, like as soon as I need it. Yeah, yeah. So that so it's again. It's about getting deliberate. So write that down. So you're in a batch. The work right? That's another example of matching. We do these photo shoots right, Especially if you like, have products and you do product photo shoots and we use one picture. All of those other shoot all of those other photos that's content by using Hoot suite to schedule it from your computer. Just pop it up now. You don't want that to be the only thing you're pushing, right? You don't want probably for you. And we'll get into this in the next thing of how it's really telling your story. How you can use the content to tell your story. You might want to show a little behind the scenes. You might want to talk about you, the person behind the brand, because that's an important piece. So it's not just gonna be perfect photos. Yeah, but probably a lot of them will be. And that's okay, right? Because that's what you're selling is the end result. You're selling that flawless spot on wedding, right? Yeah. So? So that right there is something that you can dio and then do you share content with both. Or do you try to keep it separate? A share content between Instagram and Facebook? Yeah, usually. I mean, if I do a block post all through an instagram and a Facebook post about that block post, and I do also if I I mean, I do post a lot more on Instagram. And not all of those end up being a Facebook post, but the key ones. Yes. Great. So that's something. Where do you use WordPress? No, I use blocks, pop. Okay, so that's something where you might be able to use hoot suite as your scheduling out your block content toe. Also be reflective of what's gonna happen. So if you know that your blog's post go up on Wednesday, then on Wednesday you're gonna schedule that tweet to go out or that Facebook post or that instagram you're gonna build that into your schedule? So do you see how Jen rt has the information that she needs? But it's just about thinking about it all from one place to put that plan together. Does it feel scary? Yeah, it feels like eyes organizer Phil Flick. Yeah, my whole Yeah, my whole m 00 my God, you're gonna love the lesson we do later where you get to fill in the block like the blanks. You're gonna have so much fun with that because like, Oh my God, it's so much easier than I thought, right? The other thing for you, the agenda consider is you probably have some old and Seagram pose that you could reuse on Facebook or some old INSTAGRAM images you posted that would make great blawg post graphics. So that's another way that you can streamline the amount of work that you're doing by taking that thing and repurpose ing it in other places. We all have short attention spans. We all see a lot of stuff all the time. So if you post something on Facebook that you posted three months ago on instagram are people gonna notice? Probably not. And if they dio, then they might be like your super fan. I feel like I remember when I liked this on. Instagram will be excited. It's not gonna crush your business, right? You don't want to do it all the time, right? No one, Because then people are gonna if you're reusing all the content. That's but It's about figuring out another way to deliver about you so you could post it on Facebook and ask a question on, start up that thoughtful conversation. So, do you currently use any social media tools? Yes, but he so Social Media like the management tools, like, you know. Are you going to try? I'm definitely going to try it. Is there? Do you need tools for anything else? While we're talking about tools? Is there anything else that would make your life easier? I would love to get someone like Casey has to help me out. I've actually thought about maybe getting a social media in turn. Okay, um, I myself do not like spending time on social media. Okay? I want to spend as little time as possible. I said that doesn't mean I don't still get sucked in. Um, I'm human, but I don't want to be spending the time doing it. Yeah, great. So maybe that's an investment that you deliberately make you know, and they help you, They go through and they write the tweets, and they they Are they right? The post, You know, they help you pull the images, and they scared, You know, maybe you go through and you flagged images, and you know that on Thursday were doing floral? Yeah. On Tuesday, we're doing Dick or yeah, when they find it. Yeah, And another thing that I have ah issues with is that I haven't old IPhone, and I don't update the software from concerns of things not working anymore. And so I don't have the SDO app, and my pictures are less than stellar sometimes. So I feel a little in fear when I see all these beautiful, you know, grids of beautiful photography. And my photography is just like I do try to add it on camera plus and everything, but I'm also that's just not my forte is photography and all of that kind of stuff. So do you wanna get a new phone you like, I mean, eventually. Yeah. I don't personally really want one, but for my business. Yes. Yeah, yes. I don't have that up. That's fine. We're gonna talk. We're gonna have my friend Rachel May Smith from the Crafted Life was like total Instagram rock star is actually coming in later on after lunch, and she's going to talk about some good ways to get good Instagram shots without having to do the editing. OK, so pay attention to that because you may, we have. We make up these stories that we need this thing. Everyone's using this thing. It's okay. Maybe just try to get better light. You know, maybe it's that I post these post its every day. And if you guys go through there, the photographs are terrible. They're tae I mean, a lot of them are blurry. They're terrible. So I started trying to take my picture before it's 10 o'clock at night in my kitchen with the yellow light. I try to do it a little bit earlier in the day when I get better lighting, and that makes a huge difference. But you also said you have all of these other pictures to pull from already. Yeah, and they're good said that professional photographers take those. Been like that. Just solved your problem. Yeah, so now you don't have any more excuses. Do you have any more excuses? No, I'm sure because you can tell me now. Well, I mean, when I do take my own pictures at home, I don't have the professional photographer unfortunately, but if I get an intern, who has maybe that skill perfect problems All great. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Or maybe this is where you could use a little bit of information to on unlike may, you know, doing a build a home lightbox. So you have somewhere to put stuff, and maybe that'll solve your problem. Yeah. I find that just cleaning off my phone screen before I take a picture. Knew that makes a huge difference. Right? So awesome. So you know how you're gonna start matching? You know what? You can streamline and you've got the tools to do it. You feel good about this? I do. Awesome. Yeah, just like that, right? It's It's actually when you think about it, it doesn't have to be harder Complicated, right? It really doesn't. Does anyone have any, like, ah ha moments to share anything that you're excited about trying? And I'd love to hear to from people in the chat I or but today kind drive it home, like taking naps off your phone, and I'm also going t I think I'm gonna start putting my phone in another room before I go to bed because I wake up in the morning. It's the first thing I and my husband is irritated because the bright light is on and he's not ready to get up yet. So, well, it's also the last thing you look at. Yeah, so I keep my phone in the living room where it charges and I go to bed and I read a book like a book that I get from the library, and it's the best way to, like, calm my brain and then I get up and I don't I don't grab the thing. Yeah, if you want. My husband actually likes to read Newark, New York Times articles before he falls asleep. Okay, that works for him. It doesn't work for me because I know myself. He's actually not on social media. He doesn't get it. He's like, you always do. What do you tweeting? Um So, yeah, I'm a huge fan and also like sometimes for me, for Instagram all post my picture and then I'll delete the app just for the day. I'm with my kids and I'm like, I don't even want to think about it. You can put it back on later and see all your likes and your stuff. It's about making that deliberate choice for your time. You don't have to be on it all the time. Also, you days turn off notifications. Everyone you do not need to know. Every time someone likes your instagram post, you don't you don't because remember how when you your attention is taken away, it takes 25 minutes to get back. I also have a hard time to This is from something else that you said. That kind of made me think about this for your talking, about training your followers to get in touch with were in touch with you where you are online but also like I like whenever I do get engagement from my followers, I feel really a lot of pressure to, like respond to them with in a timely manner it like sometimes and just like I don't really want to respond everything that I that I want them to know that I really appreciate them interacting with this, you know, it's another like, awesome and I'm like smiley face, you know, like I don't really like it doesn't always require response, but I do wanna show that appreciation. I think Give yourself the grace to know you're doing your best. You know that We we remember back in the day when if someone wanted to talk to you, they would call you on the phone, come to your house or mail you a letter. Even so, and then if they called us, we had to be home if we weren't home. They just called back. So now think about everyone's overwhelmed because we have the email. We also have the mail. We also have the phone. We have the text, We have the Snapchat. We have the We have the Facebook wall. We have the Facebook message. We have the Facebook comment. We have the Facebook group. We have the Twitter. We have the at mention we have the direct message we have been in Syria. Maiken, tag you or I can tag you in the comments so I can take a picture of you. What? I am so overwhelmed like, yeah, I know we all. We all humanity is overwhelmed. And it's also about Do you want to spend all of your time responding to other people? You don't. You can still deliver value to your community. It's not about becoming a jerk. It's about saying this is the best I can dio You know, sometimes I go through and my Twitter and I'll just try to favorite things. It's like, Thank you, but I can't say thank you to everyone. But what I can dio is keep making quality content. That's gonna be really valuable to my audience, and that's what they want. They want me to say, You know what? I need to get off Twitter now because I have to go interview this person for my podcast, and this conversation is going to change your life. That's so much bigger than saying thank you to a tweet if you can say thank you great. But to me, that's not my priority. My priority is my creative work. The other stuff is extra. So if I go on 10 minutes a day, that's about how much time I spent on the hoot suite for the Twitter. I try to say thank you. Some days I don't okay, if somebody I'm follows me because of that or they think I'm a terrible person, bless you. I'm sorry, I'm not your person and you will find someone else right, and that's that's about getting deliberate. Those boundaries. Anything going on in the chat, Our sap here has a few ah ha moments. Blue share. So content producer Aaron and I were chatting and 25 minutes is a huge aha for us. The fact that we lose 25 minutes and you don't let me go to our social media and I'm a writer. So it's like when I think about all the time I'm sitting at the computer and the number of times it chuck social media and it's just like it all adds up, you know? And so that all the other ah ha moment for me was the self control app. It's have Teoh writer different thing, right? Ideo writing is really like the bread and butter of my business, and I used We're gonna talk about procrastination, x, so pay attention. But the self control app is huge for me with writing because I will. I'll block it and I don't even I do 15 or 20 minutes at a time, and I just keep typing and I'll get my stuff written. I mean, it won't be good, it'll be fine, but it won't be like edited and perfect, you know, Right? Right. First edit later. Sometimes when I did, I turn off my Web access and close my email. Close my safari so that if I have to, if I want to go there, I can't just do it. I have to turn everything on. That's what I did when I worked on these slides when I worked on this class and keynote is I turned off my wife, I There you go. And when I sit at my desk, I put my phone in the drawer and I shot it when I'm like, Where's my four hours? Amazing, Right? We talked about in the easy guest class yesterday. Is that you doing? Who's saying that like you, uh, we'll go? Yeah, you like, shut it down and go spend an hour without your device. I have a lot of issues around social media and figuring out exactly where I fit in and like my voice and branding, but I have conquered the you built like I can shut it down just because I think, like you said, I just like I find that like, man, this is this just doesn't feel great like it. If I look up, it's five o'clock. I'm like I didn't get any work done and it's because I've been bouncing back and forth between I got a notification and email and then, like the slap dinged and like so I just I had to for my own self care. Just it's all get shut down and and then I find like I come back two hours later. I'm like the world didn't and you know So So I've done that enough to know. So now when I shut down, it's not a thing. It's like, I think things are gonna be fine three hour or so. In the meantime, you've also further developed your voice. Yeah, right. That's what we all wanna be authentic on social media. How do I do that? How? Social media. Yeah, ironic